


I'll Try Not to Sing Out of Key

by Diminua



Series: I'll Try Not to Sing Out of Key [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Alternate Universe (just one step sideways), F/M, M/M, Might be some spoilers but more likely simply won't make as much sense..
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-11-27
Packaged: 2018-05-03 09:41:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5285882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diminua/pseuds/Diminua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life is lived forwards but truly understood backwards. Even Timelords are curtailed in this fashion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It’s a law of nature that past events will always spiral forwards, but even the most intelligent mind with the clearest comprehension of personal and universal causality and all the subtle ways they can interlace, can only know exactly what will happen after it has. Life is lived forwards but truly understood backwards. Even Timelords are curtailed in this fashion.

This used to infuriate the Master, but she’s long since learned to tolerate what she cannot control.

It's even almost amusing to follow the premise to it's logical conclusion. That every moment, every now, is an experiment. That every relationship, however intimate or distant, is ever changing, ended and born again just a little different with each interaction, and that only at the very end, when both protagonists are gone, can it be looked at as a whole and perhaps at last understood.

 

'Let me do that.' The Doctor says, the hard edges of words worn smooth with use, steel oiled and sanded to sleek utility. 

Missy (the Mistress/the Master/Koschei if you like) is surprised but not surprised, eyes meeting his in the mirror as she surrenders the hairbrush. Her eyes are blue again this time, and paler than they’ve ever been before, but her hair is just the same smooth dark fall of so very long ago, slipping between his fingers and threatening to tumble across her face.  
Sparks of thought run into his own as he sweeps it back with his palms, easing out the static. 

Such propinquity always, and it soothes them both in equal measure. Timelord minds are not designed for isolation. It’s all too easy to find disquiet and dark in there. 

Missy's eyes grow unguarded as the Doctor brushes her hair in slow even strokes, stripped of the makeup she generally prefers to face the world in, and the Doctor sways unthinkingly forwards as his fingers stroke and slow and stroke and settle against her temple, and contact is truly established.

Everything they had, everything they are, is here in this instant. She takes the brush from his hand, fingers unfurled and limp, and lays it on the table while they can still think of such things.


	2. Chapter 2

'Out of the way.' A gun in an old man's hand, light so intense the Doctor is seeking without seeing, clutching blindly at air until his arm finds and wraps around a thickening waist and he can stagger backwards, hauling that weight as it crumples. His internal voice shouting to be heard, to find that connection. _I can't lose you. I won't lose you again._

Waking to the fierce golden fire of regeneration, the old man in the past but this new Master here and now. The ever important now.

Not lost. Not gone with Gallifrey, but young and strong and furious, gold-bronze-whisky coloured eyes blazing with offence and tricksy as a box of cats. Thundering hearts and drumming fingertips. Energy screaming for release and thoughts curling and colliding and fitting with the Doctor's own. They work, the two of them.

 

They will again, dancing smoothly, sedately around the Tardis console. 123,123, the Master-Mistress turning in defiance of the ever present background beat of four drums.

It makes Clara smile, indulgent, and only just a little concerned they're utterly mad.

'What are you doing?' She asks.

'A waltz.' Missy curtseys deeply in a way she would never have bowed to her rival/lover/friend. (There is no word for what they are, either on Earth or in Gallifreyan, which is so typical of them) and turns to face the person/puppy/latest human waif.

Clara looks quizzical, puzzling something out. If Missy read her mind now she knows she’d see writing, sentences, all the things humans use to clarify their thoughts and knock them into shape.

Timelords don’t really do that. For the small degree of clarity you might gain a hundred other possibilities will have to be discarded. But then Timelords don’t need to speak to communicate, and rarely talk to themselves aloud.

Apart from the Doctor of course, who talks to himself as though he were addressing a lecture theatre, but that probably comes of spending too much time with humans. The Doctor doesn’t believe he exists if someone isn’t oohing and aahing at his cleverness.

But all that is of the future, or at least not yet truly past, and they will have to look further.

 

'I knew it was you.' The Doctor says. 

'You can't have known.' The Master is clear and cold, despite the arms around him.

'Hoped then.' The Doctor admits, opening his own mind in the hope of sharing a little warmth. 'I hoped it was you.' 

They're not in bed. They come from a race that barely needs to sleep, and sharing a bed is not a cultural norm, but they are somewhere comfortable. A couch, a divan? The common memory is vague, but they both remember the Doctor's leg slung across the Master's hip, arms loose around him also, cradling, coddling, the thoughts indistinct as shapes in the air around them, not quite connecting, and neither quite certain whether the Master would allow himself the indignity of such comfort if it weren't so apparent the Doctor needed it.

The pets are gone, Chantho to the past and the others their own planet. Eager to go, it seemed, or the Doctor eager to be rid of them. Perhaps they know they're not enough, these humans (but the Master cannot believe that. That would mean they're not so stupid as he has always supposed). 

'Perish the thought.' The Doctor murmurs, picking a stray one up, despite the absence of any real bridge. 

They have argued again, of course. Apparently finding a power vacuum is not an invitation to fill it, even if the Doctor has foolishly created the vacuum himself. 

The Master is almost (not quite) beginning to feel sorry for the former Prime Minister, and by extension any other powerful human who might not live up to the Doctor’s frankly preposterous insistence on pacifism and blind faith. It must be maddening to be forbidden from protecting their own planet even though they can’t rely that the Doctor will always be there to do it for them.

And then there’s Gallifrey. It’s so quiet now, apart from the drums, and the Doctor has just told him Gallifrey has burned. The Daleks too. Eyes dark and mournful and oh so guilty, and the Master leans forward over the polished wood of the prime ministerial desk, insidious, Machiavellian, the very serpent in the garden of Eden, and mocks his martyr complex as freely he did his messianism 

'But how did it feel Doctor? Two mighty civilisations burning.’ He smirks. ‘You must have felt like a God.'

'Stop. Stoppit.' The Doctor blusters and his pets look oh so uncomfortable, and the Master smirks on and that irritating woman, the journalist with the brain (the only one it seems in this ridiculous rain sodden country on this equally ridiculous planet) wakes up in the cupboard and starts banging on the door. 

The Master lets her. It’ll give the Doctor someone new to save and distract him from these ridiculous denials. Later, when their minds slide and mesh together, the Master will know the truth.


	3. Chapter 3

Of course the Master leaves. Once they have restored their equilibrium, their ability to be together, they are all the more willing to be apart. 

He’ll turn up eventually (also of course), and the Doctor is fairly confident he won’t kill anyone in the meantime. He was certainly getting better – animal possession notwithstanding – before the war came and made murderers of them all. 

They flinch away from thinking of the war. The burning and the reek of blood and echo of splintered, fractured time; fragments of a past without sequence that they took much too long to piece together. A dark time, which they seek not to share.

While the Master is away the Doctor fills the space in his life – if not his heart - with another human female. 

It’s unsurprising, since the Doctor dislikes being alone, but the Master picks an argument about it on his return anyway. 

That though is nothing to the argument after she leaves, because this time the Master is serious. He is outraged. Disgusted. The Doctor’s meaningless babble about how he had no choice but to strip her mind, that she would have died if she was left with a Timelord’s knowledge in her human head, only infuriates him further.

He has been human. Limited, empty. The thought of being forced to that state again, of the poor paltry creature having those few hours of brilliance. The whole of space and time inside her mind only to be ripped away again against her will, makes him feel physically sick.

The Doctor's sudden outburst of misplaced glee doesn’t help either. He looks like he’s just received a wonderful present or a declaration of undying devotion or something equally revolting.

‘Did we just have an argument about morals?’ He asks.

The Master glares and bares his teeth at him on the basis that there’s nothing else in his vocabulary quite adequate.

‘No. We are still having an argument. The tense is important.’ 

‘But you are though.’ The Doctor makes it sound as if this is the best thing ever. ‘You’re having an actual moral argument with me. It’s brilliant.’

At that the Master genuinely snarls. ‘I can have morals. If I didn’t have morals I’d have taken you out years ago. I could be the ruler of a substantial corner of the universe by now.’ 

‘Master..’

‘Oh don’t give me that look. Like you don’t love being worshipped too. All those leggy wide-eyed human girls. _Ooh Doctor you’re so brilliant_.’

‘They don’t say that. Really. It’s really not like that.’ 

He musses his own hair, running his fingers through awkwardly. ‘It’s not like what happened to you. Donna’s meant to be human.’

 

‘If you were a human child..’ The Doctor says, one day out of nothing, reluctant to speak but alarmed by the gaps he can find in the Master’s head. ‘..left wandering the silver devastation, then you must have been an infant when you went through the chameleon arch. But if you were an infant, then how could you put yourself through the process?’

‘How could you have let off a weapon that destroyed an entire planet and not been killed by the explosion yourself?’ The Master counters, instantly. 

‘I don’t know.’ 

'Well then.' 

 

Later they will have their answers, and the Doctor will be angry at what has been done to the Master. His anger is as nothing though to the fever of hate and bitter fury with which the Master turns on Rassilon, driving him down to his knees, clinging pathetically to his ceremonial staff as the Doctor sends the planet dropping back to the past.

The Master trusts that perhaps after that little incident the council will know to treat them both as they deserve. Not chide them as though they were a pair of wayward children or manipulate them as though they could possibly still be callow. They are older now than half the council itself, are vast repositories of knowledge and power. It is ridiculous for anyone to treat them without the utmost respect.


	4. Chapter 4

Back and back. 

Such a basic, primitive power, but despite all that has happened to Missy since she was trapped on the Cheetah planet, it’s never quite left her. 

There's little solidity to her recollections of the place, just confused impressions of heat; the glare of Sun and sky and bare rock, the stink of uncured furs and sulphur. The Doctor remembers more, the volcanic activity that pulled the whole world apart, the terror that he too was becoming an animal, the struggle and the desperate wrench as he dragged them both home, to Earth. 

The Master should have known then and there that the Doctor was not entirely of Gallifrey. But he was all instinct: eat, run, chase, sleep, mate. 

He was unwell. She remembers the Doctor's explanation to Ace, her grudging, scowling sympathy. The Doctor’s offer to drop him home, the cautious presence in his mind, nudging him back in the direction of reason. 

That was the last regeneration, the very last, and he had chosen the Doctor to take his ashes home again. As the Doctor had chosen her to carry his confession dial. Who else?

Humans sleep so very much. Even mouthy little 16 year olds. Ace has retired long before they subside into a chair, the Doctor perched between the Master's spread legs (pleasant, for a change, to have the Doctor smaller than he. Not that he would particularly wish to be taller. He's always thought being tall would be like being blond. Pleasant enough to visit but you wouldn't want to live there).

It is comfortable with his chest to the Doctor’s back, his breath stirring the air by the Doctor's ear, his fingers spread across the Doctor's pulse points, sensation flowing between them, slow and sure as their doubly synchronised heartbeats. Remembering and relearning what it is to be a Timelord.

The Doctor has been blond of course. Blond and soft, blond and riotously curled, slim or solid, tall or short, but they’re all the Doctor. Even more so because the Doctor never could settle. Never had enough control.

She can grudgingly concede the injustice of that last thought. It is not the Doctor who still struggles not to divide the world into prey and predator. 

‘Oh can you now?’ The Doctor complains, somewhere behind her. ‘Well thank you very much. Thrilled to hear it.’

She straightens at once, eyes snapping open to meet his in the mirror as her concentration is broken. ‘Well you did ask. What are we looking for anyway?’

‘How should I know? I thought you were steering.’ He lets his hands drop to her shoulders though as she tenses to turn and give him a proper glare. ‘No wait. I didn’t mean to interrupt.’

‘Apology accepted then.’ She says, although the tilt of her chin suggests she's still not pleased. ‘Shall we continue?’


	5. Chapter 5

The first time he was blond she almost killed him within the year. Not least because of his arrogant reliance that she wouldn’t. That she would be blinded by gratitude and misplaced affection even when he was thwarting her plans. 

She wonders if he ever knew before now just how tempted she was to throw the complacent fool to his death. Yet.. well it was simply not the same as the destruction of an inferior species, still less a stranger, and they were friends as well as enemies. Friends before they were enemies and, she hopes, long after.

He wants to know where she went afterwards and how she escaped, but she’s already shut the door on the memory, embarrassed at being caught out in sentiment, even all these centuries later, and he respects the boundary. 

It’s association though that takes them back to when they were even younger still. Mismatched and without their later rhythm. The Doctor on his fourth regeneration to the Master's 12th. 

Before the war though, so both by comparison innocent. The Doctor wanting to help, horrified to see the burned and blackened husk the Master had become, ready to give his hearts' blood if only he had known how. 

'Words Doctor. Only words. If you truly meant what you say you would ask me to show you.' 

‘Show me.’ The Doctor holds his hands out, palms up, only emphasising that although he knows how this works in theory he has no idea in practice.

‘Your mind first.’ 

They are, in many ways, enemies. The Doctor should balk, or flinch, as the Master’s dry and shrivelled fingers reach up towards him, seeking the physical bridge that will give access to his mind. The Master is a stronger telepath than he, more experienced in the control and channelling of regenerative energy. Instead he closes his eyes so he can’t see the horror of that face, and the Master is spared sight of the dreadful pity in his heart. 

The Master moves carefully through the Doctor’s mind, not tripping the body into giving up anything of itself but showing the Doctor how. The result is that the healing stutters at first, a tease of sweet golden energy that vanishes when the Doctor loses concentration. 

He is afraid now, the Master can feel the fear seeping into his thoughts. His own desperation rises to meet it. The temptation to snatch this chance while he can, to invade the Doctor’s mind and force him to obey, is almost stronger than he can resist. 

He wrestles it down anyway, swears again in all sincerity that he will not take more than the Doctor is willing to give. 

In the end that is more than he had ever dreamt. The Doctor soon finds that place again, where the mind meets the body. Energy seeps and curls around his hands and his head in response, flows from him to the Master in a deep unbroken stream. The Master can feel his hearts slow and strengthen, the endless festering sores of his skin closing and healing. He breathes and it feels good. 

He’s overwhelmed with it, all this new sensation. Like being born again. Like the snapping of some terrible tension. At last he can rest, confident that he will wake again refreshed and well. His mind reels, and he collapses into the Doctor’s arms, barely aware that the Doctor is also falling.

When he comes to there is a new Doctor beside him, fair haired and curious and confused, a whole regeneration cycle lost to keep the Master with him. 

The Doctor will insist – still insists, even in the shared privacy of his own mind – that he did it simply because the Master asked him. 

Since she would prefer to believe that explanation to something so sloppy and so beyond her control as fate, she accepts it. She controls her world, as he always did, without any mysterious predestination, and it is not too much to ask for help from an old friend (lover/rival/enemy/only other) when you are low and in distress and there is nothing but sheer force of will left of what you once were. 

'No.’ The Doctor agrees, slipping just a little way from her mind to speak aloud again, to pull back the curtain of hair from where it had fallen forward once more and settle it behind her shoulders. 'You should never be afraid to ask.'

'My dear Doctor.' Her eyes catch his again in the mirror, and she smiles a slow, familiar, devious smile. 'I never have. I never would.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title is of course from the Beatles track 'With a Little Help From My Friends'


End file.
